The latest Optalysys funding round will support commercialisation and international growth for the Leeds-founded deep tech company
Leeds-based photonic computing company Optalysys has secured £23m in new investment to accelerate development of its technology and support expansion into the US.
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The funding is a Series A extension led by Northern Gritstone, with participation from imec.xpand, Lingotto Horizon and the UK government’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund.
What Optalysys is building
Optalysys is developing photonic chips that combine data movement and processing on a single platform, using silicon photonics alongside advanced digital technologies. The approach is designed to address the growing limitations of conventional electronic computing, particularly as demand increases from AI, cloud and data-intensive workloads.
The company’s technology is aimed at supporting compute-heavy applications such as generative AI and post-quantum algorithms, while reducing the energy consumption associated with traditional hardware.
One of the early commercial applications of its work is fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), which allows data to be processed while remaining encrypted. Optalysys previously launched its LightLocker™ Node servers, designed to support encrypted blockchain transactions using this approach.
“We are at a defining moment in the evolution of computing. Photonic computing opens up fundamentally new capabilities, allowing data to be moved and processed with far greater speed and efficiency. This investment validates both the scale of the opportunity ahead and our ability to execute against it. It allows us to expand into new markets and take an important step towards making photonic computing a mainstream part of cloud infrastructure.”
“We are at a defining moment in the evolution of computing. Photonic computing opens up fundamentally new capabilities, allowing data to be moved and processed with far greater speed and efficiency. This investment validates both the scale of the opportunity ahead and our ability to execute against it. It allows us to expand into new markets and take an important step towards making photonic computing a mainstream part of cloud infrastructure.”
“Recent acquisitions in the semiconductor industry have highlighted the role that photonics can play in addressing the limits of electronic computing, particularly in processing capability and power consumption, resulting from the demands of training and running even larger AI models. Optalysys’ approach uniquely combines data movement and compute within the same package. Expanding to the US is an exciting and natural next step for us, so that we can tap into its strong photonics ecosystem and the immense talent located in Silicon Valley.”
Investor perspective: “Optalysys is scaling towards global success. The company is building technology for the next generation of computing and has the team, technology and commercial traction that we, as investors, want. We’re excited to support the team as they continue to commercialise their technology and deliver real-world impact across multiple industries.”
Why this matters for Leeds
Funding rounds of this scale help anchor high-value research and engineering roles in the city while positioning Leeds as a base for globally competitive deep-tech businesses. As Optalysys expands internationally, its roots — and core innovation — remain in Leeds.
